Betrayed (Raven Daughter Book 2)

by A. D. Trosper

  People on this side of the veil didn’t seem as obsessed with obscure information the way the mortal world was, so I would most likely have to find the answer there. My tired brain rambled on to itself about hills and mountains until I reached the crest. A huge open meadow spread out on the other side of the hill, mountain, whatever it was.

  We had left behind the stream we’d been following, but another began as a large spring in the meadow. From this altitude, with the start of the forest a good two hundred yards below us, I could see the land spread out. At least that path would be downhill from here. No more hiking up a steep trail most of the time.

  We fanned out in the meadow and Lilly set several fires so we wouldn’t all have to crowd around one. Four of the demonborn in Dominic’s group took off to find food. Although I knew Malik would be along soon to make me work my powers and then my sparring with Lilly would follow, I sat down next to one of the fires and stared distantly at it.

  “Jo?”

  I jerked my head up, bleary eyes blinking in confusion at Caius. “Yeah?”

  Caius studied me for a long moment. “No lessons tonight.”

  “What?” I started to scramble to my feet. “I’m fine.”

  “No, you aren’t.” He pushed me back down. “You fell asleep sitting up. If I hadn’t noticed, you might have fallen forward into the fire. The last time you pushed this hard, you passed out. No lessons.”

  “You can’t tell me what to do,” I crossed my arms and tried to look determined while I yawned.

  “No, I can’t.” Caius glanced at his siblings. “But I can tell them what to do and they already know to let you be this evening.”

  “You really,” I paused to yawn so big it made my jaw pop, “don’t need to worry. I’m up to it.”

  “And you are free to train all you want if you can find someone to spar with.” He flashed me a grin that let me know there wasn’t a person in the camp willing to go against his decision.

  I tried to glare at him but ended up yawning again. “You don’t play fair.”

  “Never claimed to.”

  He straightened and walked away, returning a few minutes later with roasted meat and what looked like some kind of potato-like things piled on a platter-sized leaf. Food had been hunted and cooked already? How long was I asleep?

  My hunger overrode my desire for answers and I dug in, unsurprised when Amisi appeared next to me for her share. Thankfully, Caius came back with more for the feline who was now more than triple the size she’d been when I first saw her.

  I ate everything I’d been given and still felt like I could eat more. I wasn’t exactly hungry anymore, but I wasn’t fully satisfied either. Strange. Between real food and traveling food, we’d eaten regularly and I hadn’t even used up any reserves with my power that day so I really shouldn’t need to eat as much. Maybe the traveling food only did so much. We had been hiking from early morning to late evening every day for what seemed like forever. That took up a lot of energy all by itself.

  James came over and sat next to me. I smiled at him, thankful he seemed to have gotten over being upset with my training. “You seem happy.”

  He shrugged. “Caius is finally letting you rest.”

  “Letting me?” I chuckled. “He’s forcing me. He already told everyone no training tonight, so I don’t have anyone to spar with.”

  “I’m glad he’s finally come to his senses.”

  “Are you turning into a mother hen, James?” I asked playfully.

  “Nope. Just someone with sense.” His expression was sober. “Seriously, Jo, you’re running yourself into the ground. Anyone can see that. I don’t know why, but you haven’t been quite yourself since Nyx’s.”

  “And ever since Nyx’s, we’ve had nothing but day after day of hard climb, followed by hard training.” I shifted so my legs were crisscrossed. “Why is that so difficult for everyone to understand?”

  “Uh, maybe because everyone else is doing the same.” James frowned. “I mean, Bethany and I may not train quite as hard every evening as you do, but we walk the same distance.”

  “Yeah well, a night of no training should have me all perked up.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Perky is hardly an adjective I would ever use to describe you.”

  “I said perked up, not perky.” I grinned and shoved his shoulder.

  “I’m glad you made the distinction, because I was thinking death magnet, or walking disaster, or suddenly over emotional—” I burst out laughing, cutting off his ludicrous list. He grinned and draped an arm around my shoulders. “It’s good to see you laugh. You haven’t done enough of it since all of this started.”

  I sighed and leaned into him, staring at the fire. “Hard to laugh when everything is such a mess.”

  “It’s not all a complete mess. We are on our way to the second key, you have your friends around you, and you really are getting a handle on your powers. It could be worse.”

  “True.”

  James gave a gentle tug and I allowed him to guide me down until we lay on our backs, my head resting on his arm. Amisi curled up against my side, willing to tolerate James if meant she could sleep near me. As we stared up at the ever darkening sky, I said, “You’re a good friend, you know that, right?”

  “How do you know? Since you didn’t have any friends before coming to Midtween, you have nothing to compare me to. I could be awful for all you know.”

  I snorted in amusement. “Because you make me laugh and make me happy to be in your company, put up with all the weird crap in my life, stick by my side, and get angry on my behalf. I’m pretty sure those are things good friends are supposed to do.”

  He gave me a squeeze with his arm. “You are a good friend too, surprisingly enough, given your lack of experience until a little over a year ago.”

  My chuckle turned into a yawn and we lapsed into silence while we watched stars appear. A light breeze wafted over the large campsite while the quiet conversations of everyone mingled with the rush of the stream from the spring. Full, comfortable, and content in the company of James, my mind drifted and my lids slid shut.

  ***

  “I had pushed her too hard again, and she was pushing herself in the same manner. The way she tired so easily was starting to worry me.” ~Caius

  Chapter 26

  Several loud shouts woke me. I rolled away from James and onto my feet without even thinking. Fight-or-flight sharpened my senses and snapped me fully awake in the confusion of seran demons swarming out of the night. Firelight flickered across the smooth scales of their massive bodies as they darted among the Fallen, reapers, and demonborn alike.

  My power came the instant I called it and the first seran to lunge at me got a face full of shield. I spun, bringing my other hand that held the fan around as I did, and slashed through the seran’s hide. Dark blood sprayed across me as the seran fell, cut nearly in half. It writhed and snapped at me, nearly catching my leg. I smashed its skull with another blow of the shield.

  A quick look around the meadow revealed the chaos of battle. More seran demons flowed out of the darkness. We were outnumbered by several to one—I didn’t have time to count the exact number. Two more came at me while another darted at James. He swung his staff with an efficiency I admired; his lessons with Caius were paying off.

  Amisi clung to the head of another, her claws sunk into its eyeballs as the snake-like demon thrashed around.

  The two aiming for me split from each other and came from either side. Working with my shield and fan, I managed to hold them off. Their moves were as quick as I remembered as they tried to get close enough to knock me down or sink their teeth into me. The longest one circled me with its body even while it continued to attack. I kept a close watch on the tail while I slammed my shield into the other seran. James let out a screaming yell. My attention jerked to him. A seran had latched onto him, the mouth covering most of his body.

  I flung my fan out from my hand. It took more concentration than I thoug
ht it would to make it hold and fly true. Lilly had made it look so easy with her arrow, but this was the first time I’d tried something like that. The fan spun through the air and sliced through the seran, removing its head. The demon fell to the ground. James landed next to it with the thing’s teeth still buried in his armor.

  The fan returned to my hand and I moved just in time to avoid being bitten by the one nearest me. Its maw came down on the fan instead. The outer corners cut neatly through the roof of its mouth and the underside of its jaw. Elijah appeared in the ring of light cast by the fire and started extracting James from the double row of teeth.

  Taking advantage of the distraction, the largest seran had fully circled me. I made an agile leap to the top of its massive body and rolled down the far side. The seran moved like lightning. I barely missed getting a bite taken out of me. The seran hissed, revealing the decaying meat wedged between its teeth and nearly knocking me out with the smell.

  My stomach convulsed and I gagged. Despite my insides wanting to suddenly hurl themselves out of my mouth, I managed to bring my shield up in time to stop the seran’s forward rush. The impact from the massive demon smacked the shield into my chest and sent me flying back. Though my armor had taken the brunt of the impact, I still blinked at the sky, dazed. My fan and shield winked out. The night grew hazy. Something was wrong with me. Oh, breathing, that would help. Except I couldn’t get my lungs to work. Panic crept in.

  The seran lunged again. Elijah cut across my vision, taking down the demon in blurring moves. He turned to me, grabbed my arm and yanked me into a sitting position. A sound smack in the middle of my back jarred me and I sucked in a breath. Elijah pulled me to my feet. “Are you still able?”

  In answer, I remade the weapons I’d lost. He turned to take on the next seran. Gathering my wits, I did the same.

  Lilly let loose a string of curses when one managed to get its teeth in her. She jabbed an indigo sword through its head from the bottom, twisted, and yanked it back out. Rowen moved in to dislodge the teeth.

  Bleeding wounds opened all down my arm as Caius took a bite in order to protect Malik’s back. Ignoring the pain, I kept my focus on the serans around me. Three more went down in quick succession with Elijah taking down a fourth that tried to flank me.

  A screech from Bethany announced a seran latching onto her. The snarl that came from Malik startled me. He always seemed easygoing. In full-on demon-mode and bearing down on the seran that had hold of Bethany, he was anything but.

  The ground hummed under my feet and I could feel the serans as they moved across it, and the burnt rip in the ground they’d used to enter the Between. They were coming from one direction and splitting up before they reached us. I threw my fan like a frisbee, expanding it and making a disk out of it as it flew, pouring power and concentration into it in order to keep it going where I wanted and maintain the size and shape I wanted.

  Glowing green and covered in runes, it spun through the darkness toward the source, slicing through the serans with ease. It would stop this wave, but the ground needed to be healed so no more could come through.

  I glanced at Elijah. “Don’t let them kill me.”

  “What?” He cut another down and frowned.

  “Just don’t, okay.” Without waiting for a reply, I let my shield go and knelt to place my palm against the dirt. I don’t know why, only that it felt right. I sent the power I’d been using to maintain the shield through the soil until it found the wound the serans had made when they tore their way into the Between at the behest of whoever had sent them.

  Although focused on healing the ground, I kept enough attention on my frisbee to keep it spinning and making complete circuits around the entire meadow, preventing any more serans from entering the circle of light created by multiple fires. There were still plenty inside that, but I couldn’t bring my weapon any closer without cutting down friend as well as foe. I wished I could have used my angel powers to create a dome over everyone, but all it would do is push everyone away except for Caius. My power wouldn’t even let Rowen inside it. I didn’t know how it would react to the Fallen.

  The scorched tear healed under the touch of my power and fused in such a way it couldn’t be reopened here. I let go of what was in the ground and called my frisbee back, shrinking it and shaping it back into a fan as it returned. With those beyond the light dead, the furious fight within it was quickly coming to a close. I caught my fan in one hand and formed the shield again in the other.

  The weapons expanded without my permission then shrank only to repeat as my power fluctuated wildly. I’d held too much for too long. The fight was almost over anyway. Caius, Dominic, and Malik were taking down the last of the serans. In a hurry to stop the fluctuations in my power, I released it all at once. The new fan and shield disappeared and my power snapped back like a rubber band. I staggered under the full body slap as my vision went double.

  Elijah steadied me. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine, just give me a minute.” I swayed as the repercussions of heavy power use hit home. “I think…I think I need to sit down.”

  Elijah helped me make it to the ground, which was nice since it kept me from face-planting. I blinked rapidly in an attempt to make the doubles go away. Never let all of the power go at once, lesson learned. That crap hurt and it left my brain feeling scrambled. I should have pulled it back first.

  “Are you hurt?”

  I looked dumbly at Elijah who crouched next to me. “What?”

  “I know I have no right to worry, but I am afraid it cannot be helped.” Elijah’s blue eyes searched mine, concern etched on his face.

  “Victoria makes that same expression.” I don’t know why I was telling him this. “You two look a lot alike. She’s a female version of you. Do you have any idea how confusing that is?” I scowled at him. “I love her. But you are…you.” I motioned vaguely at him. Was I even making sense? I hoped so because it was important.

  “I am truly and deeply sorry. More than I can express and likely more than you would believe,” Elijah said, keeping a hand on my shoulder so I didn’t fall over. “I made the biggest mistake of my considerably long life when I left. I thought it would keep Victoria safer. I was unaware you were in the making. By the time I realized how terrible my error was, it was impossible for me to get back through the veil to the mortal world. My transgressions were known, any attempt would have just brought the Heavens down on me, your mother, and Victoria.” He paused then added, “And apparently you.”

  “Shouldn’t have ever left to begin with.” My vision was slowly getting back to normal, though my entire body still stung.

  Elijah sighed. “It was not my intent to remain gone. Your mother had shielded Victoria, no one on this side of the veil could sense her. Even I was unable to sense she was anything more than a mortal baby when I held her in my arms. When I came back, it was to tell them Victoria had perished. I knew if they could not sense her, they would believe me and would stop searching for her.”

  “Why?” I asked, searching his familiar face for answers. “Why did you ever go to the mortal world in the first place?”

  Elijah looked away, but not before I caught the shame in his eyes. “Boredom. I went to the mortal world for something to do. Victoria’s mother was sweet and soft and I failed to use proper judgment. When she died giving birth to your sister, I was at a loss as to what to do. I tried to leave her in Midtween, thinking she would be cared for by people who knew what they were doing.

  “When I realized they would go after even an infant because I was her father, I fled with her back to the mortal world. Victoria was only a couple of weeks old when I stumbled across your mother. She knew what I was the moment she saw me. And I knew what she was.”

  “Did you love her?” The question had burned in me for years.

  “Miranda accepted Victoria like she was her own. Accepted me for the bored, lonely, law-breaking angel that I was.” Elijah smiled with wistful sadness when he
looked me in the eye. “Yes, I loved her. I would have loved you and your sister too and raised you had I the chance.”

  I looked down at my hands as tears swam in my eyes. None of it was what I expected. He wasn’t awful, he wasn’t a monster. He had loved my mother and hadn’t even meant to abandon us. I didn’t know how to feel.

  “Jo?”

  I raised my wet eyes.

  Caius crouched in front me. At the sight of my tears, his golden gaze swept over me. “Are you hurt?” When I shook my head, he reached out and touched my arm that was still weeping blood from under my armor. “Then what’s this?”

  “Just reflected from you. It doesn’t hurt as bad as an actual bite.” I pulled the armor off my arm and examined the injury for something to do and something else to think about. They weren’t deep, probably because Caius’s armor kept the teeth from getting too far, and were already healing. “I used too much power and let it go without pulling it in first.”

  “Ouch.” Caius grinned.

  “That’s an understatement,” I mumbled.

  Elijah stood. “I will see to the other Fallen.”

  Grateful for the space, I let out a relieved sigh as he walked away. Caius studied me for a long moment. “Now that he’s gone, you want to tell me what’s going on?”

  “He’s not like I thought he would be. He told me what happened, why he was in the mortal world to begin with, and why he never came back after he left.” Caius’s face swam as more tears pooled in my eyes. “Honestly, I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I should be happy I was wrong about him.”

  “You haven’t quite been the same since Nyx’s. Finding emotional balance after something like that takes time.” There was an undercurrent in Caius’s tone that made me think he wasn’t sure he believed his own words.

  “Yeah, I guess.” What else could I say? I could only assume he was right. Either that or I was permanently damaged by Bryson.

  Caius held out his hand. I took it and let him pull me to my feet. At least the doubles were gone and I didn’t feel on the verge of collapsing anymore. A glance around the meadow revealed several people in the process of taking care of wounds. Bethany downed a vial of replenisher while Malik watched. Lilly’s injury was already healed. My own was well on its way now. Even James seemed okay.